Goodness-of-fit in center day care: relations of temperament, stability, and quality of care with the child’s adjustment

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Abstract

In this study, the concept of ‘goodness-of-fit’ between the child’s temperament and the environment, introduced by Thomas and Chess [Temperament and Development, Brunner/Mazel, New York, 1977], is applied within the setting of center day care. Mothers and primary professional caregivers of 186 children, aged 6–30 months, participated in this study. The child’s problem behaviors were assessed with the CBCL Teacher Report Form [Achenbach, T.M., Guide for the Caregiver–Teacher Report Form for Ages 2–5, Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, 1997]. The child’s socio-emotional well-being in day care was measured with the Leiden Inventory for the Child’s Well-Being in Day Care. The Infant Characteristics Questionnaire measured the child’s temperament. Children with an easier temperament showed less internalizing and total problem behavior and more well-being. The results suggest that for children with a more difficult temperament, several parallel care arrangements interfere with the process of adapting to the day care setting. Also, our results indicate that in the group of children with greater availability of trusted caregivers, a more easy-going temperament was associated with more well-being. The association between temperament and well-being was not found in the group of children with less access to trusted caregivers.

Introduction

In this study, the concept of ‘goodness-of-fit’ between the child’s temperament and the environment, introduced by Thomas and Chess (1977), is applied within the day care setting. Only few studies have addressed the role of a child’s temperament in day care. In these studies, teachers’ perception of children’s temperament is sometimes found to be associated with their adjustment to day care as perceived by the same teachers (Klein, 1991; Zajdeman & Minnes, 1991), whereas mothers’ perception of their children’s temperamental characteristics did not predict adjustment to day care (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1998; Zajdeman & Minnes, 1991). Hagekull and Bohlin (1995) found that parents’ report of toddlers’ irritability is a predictor of later externalizing behaviors as perceived by both parents and day care teachers.

In various studies, young children’s difficult temperament was a precursor of both later externalizing behavior, such as attention problems or antisocial behavior, and later internalizing behavior, such as anxiety and fear (for reviews see Campbell, 1995; Rothbart & Bates, 1998; Seifer, 2000). A pattern of linkage appears to exist between specific early temperament scales and specific kinds of later behavior problems (Rothbart & Bates, 1998). In particular, subdimensions of distress to novelty and irritable distress more often showed associations with internalizing behavior, whereas subdimensions of resistance to control or manageability more often showed associations with externalizing behavior. In this study, we will explore whether differences in temperament are associated with a young child’s adjustment to day care.

In addition to our focus on the child’s problem behavior in day care, we will also examine infants’ and toddlers’ well-being in day care. When entering center day care, young children should feel comfortable in the presence of caregivers. It will help them to cope with challenges they might encounter in the day care setting. The concept of well-being can be defined as the degree to which a child feels at ease with his or her caregivers, and it also includes how comfortable the child is in the physical setting of the center and with the other children in the group. This concept is derived from an earlier study (Van IJzendoorn, Tavecchio, Stams, Verhoeven, & Reiling, 1998a) and elaborates on positive dimensions of a child’s adjustment to day care. The measure of young children’s socio-emotional well-being in day care is not meant to assess stage-salient developmental tasks or specific skills and it is therefore likely to be especially useful in a group of very young children with varying ages. Based on research that shows that a child’s temperament affects the child’s socio-emotional functioning, the first hypothesis we want to explore in our study is:

H1

A child’s more difficult temperament is associated with more problem behavior and less well-being in the day care setting.

We need to bear in mind that certain so-called problem behaviors may be age-appropriate, reflecting developmental changes or age-related conflict (Campbell, 1995, Koot, 1993), e.g. defiance and non-compliance can be seen partly as age-appropriate behavior for toddlers as the child is struggling with a need for autonomy. So, in assessing problem behavior in very young children caution is needed when defining certain behaviors as maladaptive. Yet, we assume broad band factors of problem behavior to be important indicators of the child’s adjustment to a day care setting. Several studies have shown a relatively high degree of stability of broad band factors of externalizing and internalizing problem behavior, from preschool to middle childhood (Lavigne et al., 1998; Mesman & Koot, 2001; see also Campbell, 1995, for an overview). This stability of problem behavior was even found in a study comprising children as young as 18 months (Mathiesen & Sanson, 2000). In a population-based sample, Mathiesen and Sanson (2000) found moderate test-retest reliability from 18 to 30 months of age for externalizing and internalizing behavior scales. They also reported considerable stability in factor structure across age.

The goodness-of-fit hypothesis refers to the idea that the implications of a child’s temperamental profile depend to a large extent on the consonance between the child’s behavioral style, on the one hand, and the properties of the social environment and its expectations on the other (Thomas & Chess, 1977). In the same way, poorness-of-fit involves discrepancies between environmental opportunities and the child’s temperamental characteristics, resulting in maladaptive functioning. A difficult temperament may have different implications for the child’s adjustment depending on the way in which different (social) contexts deal with elevated levels of reactivity or irritability. For example, in cultures in which regular sleep patterns are not predominant or required, temperamental irregularity in sleeping patterns may interfere to a lesser extent with harmonious parent–child relationships than in cultures in which parents demand rigid sleeping schedules (Super & Harkness, 1986).

Several studies tested the goodness-of-fit hypothesis in the context of the family (Kochanska, 1995; Mangelsdorf, Gunnar, Kestenbaum, Lang, & Andreas, 1990; Patterson & Sanson, 1999; see for reviews: Bates, 1989; Rothbart & Bates, 1998), but only a few investigations into goodness-of-fit in other child care contexts have been conducted (Carey & McDevitt, 1995). Interactions between temperament and day care characteristics may be crucial in understanding differences in the child’s well-being and problem behavior. For example, Hagekull and Bohlin (1995) found that temperamentally easy toddlers showed reduced aggressiveness at 4 years of age when they experienced higher quality of care, whereas difficult children did not demonstrate reduced aggressiveness in high-quality care settings. Children with a ‘difficult’ or reactive temperament may be more vulnerable to lower quality day care and less stability in care than children with an ‘easy’ temperament. Therefore, we expect characteristics of the day care setting to be experienced differently by children with a more difficult or an easier temperament. Structural dimensions of quality of child care, such as child–caregiver ratio, and aspects of caregiver stability have been found to predict the quality of care provided and the child’s socio-emotional development (Clarke-Stewart, Gruber, & Fitzgerald, 1994; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1998; Phillips, 1987). Lower child–caregiver ratios were associated with more positive caregiving as well as with more social competence, more social adjustment and caregiver–child relationships of higher quality. Children experiencing more caregiver stability in the day care setting had more secure relationships with their caregivers (Barnas & Cummings, 1994; Howes & Hamilton, 1992; Raikes, 1993) and showed higher degrees of social competence (Howes & Hamilton, 1993). In this study, we will elaborate on a child’s daily experiences of stability in care and explore whether this kind of stability in care is also related to the child’s adjustment. Two aspects of daily stability will be included. Caregiver availability describes the degree to which trusted caregivers are available for the child every day. A child may be cared for by different caregivers within a single day, due to rotating shifts of caregivers or participation in activities in other rooms with other caregivers. Arrangement stability describes the number of concurrent arrangements. For example, after a day at the center, some children go to another care arrangement before going home. Child–caregiver ratio and experiences of daily stability in care may both contribute as environmental factors to the explanation of differences in the child’s adjustment to the day care setting. We expect that:

H2

Lower child–caregiver ratios, more caregiver availability and more arrangement stability are related to greater well-being in the day care setting and less problem behavior.

H3

Child–caregiver ratio, caregiver availability, and arrangement stability in care will act as moderating factors in the relation between a difficult temperament and less positive adjustment. Lower child–caregiver ratios, more caregiver stability and more arrangement stability will reduce the association between temperament and a child’s adjustment. In the same vein, higher child–caregiver ratios, less caregiver availability, and less arrangement stability will increase the association of a difficult temperament with the child’s well-being and problem behavior.

In a survey study in 113 day care centers, we explore the three hypotheses concerning the role of temperament and day care characteristics in a child’s adjustment to day care.

Section snippets

Participants

The mothers and primary professional caregivers of 186 children (48% female), aged 6–30 months (M=18.6 months, S.D.=6.88), participated in this survey study. The children were enrolled in 113 different day care centers, each child attending a separate group.

Gender, age, and SES differences in temperament and child adjustment variables

Table 1 presents the means and standard deviations for boys and girls for temperament, the child’s well-being and the three problem behavior scales. Gender differences were examined using t-tests. No gender differences were found for temperamental difficultness nor for the child’s well-being in day care. Gender differences were found for the three behavior scales. Boys showed more internalizing, externalizing, and total problem behavior than girls.

Pearson correlations of temperament,

Discussion

In this study, we attempted to expand our knowledge of a child’s temperament and his socio-emotional functioning within the day care setting. We evaluated the adjustment of 186 young children in a day care setting using the ‘goodness-of-fit’ hypothesis (Thomas & Chess, 1977) to address possible relations of children’s temperament with their socio-emotional well-being and problem behavior. To explore whether temperament is related to the child’s adjustment to day care, we investigated main

Implications for practice

The results of our study support the notion that parents and professional caregivers should consider the child’s temperamental characteristics in his or her process of adapting to the child care setting. For example, when a child starts in day care, professional caregivers may discuss a child’s temperamental characteristics with the parents. It may be helpful to exchange information about parents’ and caregivers’ supporting strategies in relation to a child’s temperamental characteristics, and

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants from Stichting Kinderopvang Nederland (SKON), a Dutch Foundation for child care, and from ‘Stichting Rondom het Kind,’ a Dutch Foundation for child welfare, to Marinus H. Van IJzendoorn and Louis W.C. Tavecchio.

The authors wish to thank Johannes M. Koot for his advice concerning the Child Behavior Checklist, Kate Hudson-Brazenall for linguistic editing of the text, and Linda Groen, Charlotte Kokke, and Herjet Visser for their help in collecting the data.

This

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